JNSQ + Kerbalism: A Crewed Exploration Career Playthrough (Cinematic Series)

[cxg2827]

 Mission Planning and Design: Moho
With an expected Delta-v requirement of 17,000m/s for the round trip, it was determined that NTR would no longer cut it, and the use of pulsed inductive propulsion would be used. For improved performance, the command module would not travel with the transfer vehicle, and be left in high Kerbin orbit. Additionally, an "all-up" approach would be used to simplify the mission, and to provide the crew with a tad more living space for the first half of the trip. Electrical power for the engines provided via a fission reactor, which is placed into hibernation to save reactor fuel once burns are complete. Solar cells to provide power during remaining phases of the mission, with sufficient battery capacity for times in the shadow of Kerbin and Moho.

Total mission cost: 1.17 Million

Spoiler

 

Moho Departure
Crew Roster: 

• Leemund (Pilot)
• Hayzer (Engineer)
• Jedfry (Scientist)

Year 22, Day 62. The crew take off on a Pegasus V and perform a rendezvous with the Moho-CTV in a 2Mm orbit just outside the radiation belt. A 2,867m/s burn is performed for the ejection to Moho, expending the 2 drop tanks mid burn. Within 134 days, the crew enters Moho SOI, and capture with 5,4010/s of Delta-v.

Spoiler

 

Moho Mission
As radiation is moderate at Moho, the exploration rover is first deployed to perform some scans and science collection. After the crew departs it will remain active and explore an additional biome.

Year 22, Day 202. Mission time of 140 days, and the first steps are taken on Moho. The higher gravity and radiation makes it difficult to explore more than one biome, so after EVA reports and surface sample collection, the crew departs the surface.

Spoiler

 

Return to Kerbin
After 74 days in Moho SOI, the transfer window to Kerbin opens. A 5,872m/s Ejection Burn is performed. In order to increase efficiency and prevent a possible lack of delta-v to capture at Kerbin, 2 thrusters are deactivated to allow a higher electrical input to be diverted to the 2 active thrusters for a higher ISP, expending less argon fuel.

Year 22, Day 357. Mission time of 295 days marks the return to Kerbin's SOI. Roughly 3,000m/s of delta-v is used for the capture and rendezvous with the command module still in orbit.

3 days later, the crew safely returns to the Surface.

 

Moho Mission Video

 

 

[cxg2827]

  Mission Planning and Design: Gilly and Eve Landers
This mission is the first time I have ever landed on Eve, which I didn't even do in the stock system.

The first lander design began as a LF/Ox approach using Eve optimized engines, but was scrapped once it was realized that it was 284 tons, and would require orbital fueling and a massive departure/capture stage.

Spoiler

 

The next iteration used the Kerbal Atomics nuclear aerospike, which brought the lander down to 167 tons. A considerable improvement, but with the narrow base and tall stance, it was prone to tipping of not landed on a flat terrain as tested in KRASH. The other problem was the method of entering the atmosphere, which required inflatable heatshields on both ends. The dense atmosphere also create complications with decoupling the lower shield, which even with sepratrons to push away and to the side could still fall back into the craft.

Spoiler

 

This brought me to the final design. The use of asparagus staging meant that the craft could be much shorter. The bottom of the tanks can have heatshields, and with the heat tolerance of the aerospike, it could aerobrake. For stability, control fins were needed at the head of the craft, and were installed on decouplers to ditch once the craft slowed enough. It was also a more manageable 62T, which became 147 tons with the transfer/capture stage and de-orbit stages added. The transfer stage included a small fission reactor to provide sufficient power for cryo cooling the liquid hydrogen.

Spoiler

 

The Gilly portion was simple to design as it only required 70 m/s for a landing.  A habitation extension package was designed to include a hydroponic module to test the concept of food production during interplanetary missions. This was docked with the Moho-CTV with the addition of a mapping probe that would map the biomes of Gilly and complete a SCANsat contract.

Spoiler

 

Total mission cost: 2.14 Million

 

Kerbin Departure

Crew Roster: 

• Jeb (Pilot)
• Bill (Engineer)
• Bob (Scientist)

Spoiler

 

Gilly Segment

Year 24, Day 351. Mission time of 157 days, the crew arrive at Gilly. The probe is deployed, and performs an RCS burn to transfer into a polar orbit. After a few days of scanning, the crew land on Gilly. 

Spoiler

 

Eve Segment
The Gilly lander is left in Gilly orbit as it has served its purpose, and the crew departs to Eve. The Eve lander is a bit spartan, and requires the crew to go on an EVA to board the craft. Landing is nominal as the parachutes were sufficient for a soft landing.

Walking on the surface required some finesse, as there seemed to be some glitch where you would begin to sink into the ground, and can Poof the kerbals if you go deep enough. Moving on the surface required takeing jumps every few steps to reset the sinking.

Ascent back to orbit was executed without any issues, however I forgot to change the quality of the aerospike to "high" and it only had a single ignition. This meant an engineer had to make a quick sub-orbital EVA to fix/reset the ignitions prior to circularization. From here the crew segment decoupled, and waited a few orbits before making a small RCS burn for a rendezvous intercept with the transfer vehicle.

Spoiler

 

Return to Kerbin
Year 26, Day 55. Mission time of 1 year, 226 days, the transfer window to Kerbin opens and the CTV burns for a return trajectory.

Year 26, Day 219. Mission time of 2 years, 25 days the crew return safely to Kerbin.

 

Eve Mission Video

 

[cxg2827]

Jool V
This was  a very involved mission to plan for, and several close calls throughout the trip. For this, I'll just post the videos.

Spoiler

 

Jool Mission Videos

 

 

 

[cxg2827]

Jool V Lessons Learned
From the completion of the Jool V mission came a few findings that will help sculpt future JNSQ missions.  Although there was ample space for the crew, stress was still a problem that began causing problems towards the end of the mission.  There were 3 stress-induced failures that occurred on the return leg of the mission, one of which impacted a VASIMR engine. 

Cutting down the transit times would become a priority, and would lead the career into Far Future Technologies.

The Next mission would be to visit Hamek, on the power of a Afterburning Fission Fragment Rocket Engine.

Total mission cost: 1.8 Million

 

Hamek Mission Video

 

[cxg2827]

 Eeloo
Reusing the crew transfer vehicle from the Hamek mission as the distance was very similar, the Eeloo mission would end up being the cheapest one in the career.

For this, it only had to refuel LH2 and supplies, and docking a new adapter to dock 2 crafts in a "Y" configuration. The standard command capsule used for sending the crew to orbit would be modified with landing legs to act as a lander for the 2 moons orbiting Eeloo. this was also done to fulfill an exploration contract requiring to return a craft that has orbited Eeloo.

Total mission cost: 349k

 

Eeloo Mission Video

 

[Nori]

Not sure if you are still around working on this.. But great stuff! I've been playing JNSQ with Kerbalism as well (probably slightly easier settings than you) and these have been fun to watch. I love your ship designs! Very creative. I'm curious if you'd be willing to share any of your craft files? I'm trying to get some ideas for a few interplanetary designs and a few parts you use, I'm sure I have the mod, but I can't figure out what ones they are.

[cxg2827]

Hi. I did finish the final tours and the last video for Lindor is getting Edited currently.  I've nuked my install so I could install RO/RP-1 but I'll get my craft files from my backup drive and share to kerbalx.

[Nori]

1 hour ago, cxg2827 said:

Hi. I did finish the final tours and the last video for Lindor is getting Edited currently.  I've nuked my install so I could install RO/RP-1 but I'll get my craft files from my backup drive and share to kerbalx.

I just returned from a partially failed Duna Mission. I should have KRASH tested my plane's flight a bit more. Was darn near impossible to land the thing and then I waste some fuel and barely made it home so no Ike stop. Good fun!

RO/RP-1 is hardcore. I setup a separate install for it and will give it a real go at some point. But it's scary. 

[Nori]

On 6/10/2023 at 11:42 AM, cxg2827 said:

Hi. I did finish the final tours and the last video for Lindor is getting Edited currently.  I've nuked my install so I could install RO/RP-1 but I'll get my craft files from my backup drive and share to kerbalx.

Just curious if you found your craft files. I've been designing a eve mission and it's been difficult to get proper planes that can deorbit and get back to orbit, so I'm moving onto doing a lander.

[cxg2827]

got it from my external. here you go, my whole VAB folder from the career:

 

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/neinkjj9q4nx70x5cuz91/h?dl=0&rlkey=zqof556ypiixiknrricdeowgt

[Nori]

On 6/20/2023 at 7:52 PM, cxg2827 said:

got it from my external. here you go, my whole VAB folder from the career:

 

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/neinkjj9q4nx70x5cuz91/h?dl=0&rlkey=zqof556ypiixiknrricdeowgt

You are the best, thanks!

[TheFreddyOMG]

Hi @cxg2827! Love the series and have been watching all of it. I want to start a similar career to yours with more or less the same modlist. I love your landers design, specially that one for Ike's. Got most of the mods that you used in that one but haven't find which one include those longer version of the small cubic struts where you placed the RCS. Would you mind telling which mod is it? Thanks!

[TheFreddyOMG]

26 minutes ago, TheFreddyOMG said:

Hi @cxg2827! Love the series and have been watching all of it. I want to start a similar career to yours with more or less the same modlist. I love your landers design, specially that one for Ike's. Got most of the mods that you used in that one but haven't find which one include those longer version of the small cubic struts where you placed the RCS. Would you mind telling which mod is it? Thanks!

Never mind! I've just found it myself, I was missing Near Future Constructions. Thanks anyway and hope to see any future series you may bring!

[cxg2827]

Glad you enjoyed it!